MP Tracey Crouch claims Prime Minister Liz Truss ‘made promises’ for a football regulator

Former Sports Minister and Conservative MP Tracey Crouch says that Liz Truss promised Tory voters a football regulator in hustings this summer to secure votes to become Prime Minister and says that it will be a matter of integrity if she breaks her word.

Crouch, MP for Chatham and Aylesford, who authored the Government’s independent review into football, which recommended the regulator, was responding to reports that PM Truss is set to ditch promised legislation in a dramatic Government U-turn.

Crouch said: ‘There is a general anti regulatory vibe in the new government but it [the regulator] is in the manifesto and Liz made promises during the hustings, so it is a huge test of her own integrity if she breaks them.’

Conservative MP Tracey Crouch says Liz Truss (above) promised voters a football regulator

 Crouch (second left) believes Truss breaking her pledge would ‘test her integrity’

It will be hugely embarrassing for Truss if it emerges that she had promised to go ahead with the regulator while being questioned by Conservative voters during hustings this summer and then ditches the legislation, as it will revive similar questions of integrity that dogged former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

It appears however that the Government has caved into pressure from the Premier League and the Super League breakaway Big Six clubs, who are opposed to regulation.

It fits a pattern for Truss in kow towing to big business over the concerns of ordinary people, many of whom voted Tory for the first time in 2019.

It seems the Government has caved to the Premier League, who stand against regulation

It has also emerged that Stuart Andrew, MP for Pudsey, will be appointed sports minister on Friday.

Though he has no obvious background in sport, he is viewed as an adept appointment.

However, it reflects the Government’s low priority for sport that it has taken more than two weeks to appoint him